


Radioactive

by moobloomsupremacy



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Angst and Drama, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Apocalypse, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Apocalypse, Songfic, You Decide, are they homies?, is it love?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moobloomsupremacy/pseuds/moobloomsupremacy
Summary: The old world is dead, and Dream is happy to see it go. His coat, his mask, and his blade-- that’s all he needs to survive in the scorching heat and decaying civilization that was once called North America, testaments to his determination to die as he chooses.Then one day, he meets someone who makes him want to fight. Someone who he wants to live for.How long until it all collapses around them?- dystopian dream team au based on radioactive by imagine dragons
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	1. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m waking up to ash and dust  
> I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust  
> I’m breathing in the chemicals
> 
> cw (applies throughout the story): light swearing, some descriptions of injuries/infections/blood, light implications of depressive/suicidal actions

For the first time in a long time, Dream wishes he could take off his mask.

His boots drag across the shimmering pavement, catching in the years and years of bubbles, potholes, and cracks in the faded material. He rolls his shoulders, shifting uncomfortably in his emerald jacket and faded shirt. The weight of his pack presses into his damp back.

It’s hot, far too hot for anything resembling comfort. The sun is at its peak, and there’s not a single cloud in the sky. Dream squints up through the white material of his mask, debating with himself whether or not he prefers the acid rain. Now that’s a phenomenon he can run from-- he sees the bruise-coloured clouds coming a mile off, and takes shelter in a school, a store long emptied of any provisions, or even a barn, though he prefers not to settle for the latter (even after a year, the smell of rotting livestock lingers). 

But this heat, dry and harsh and unforgiving? There’s nowhere to hide from it, and no way to prevent beads of sweat from pooling in the crevices of Dream’s face without taking his mask off. Lord knows he’s not about to do that: his long nose would burn instantly, among other problems.

Dream sighs, hitches his bag up a little higher, and picks up the pace. He’s walking along an empty stretch of highway, with no end in sight, and no scenery to gaze at as he plods on. All he can see in either direction are the shriveled husks of trees, standing still and watchful in the yellow grass until their trunks blend together and the horizon becomes a wall of beige. No birds, no animals, and nothing green: not like he’s expecting anything of the sort. Dream tries to think back to the last time he saw a living thing that wasn’t a bug, a rat, or a wild-eyed survivor brandishing a knife to his throat.

“I can’t,” he says aloud, and it sinks in.  
“I’m alone. I’ve been alone for months.”  
He sighs, waving his arms in the air.  
“And now I’m talking to myself! Alright, I’m ready to start hallucinating, or die from heat stroke.”  
His tone is bitter. Am I joking, Dream thinks, or am I delirious? Do I care?

The day stretches on, Dream staying silent, aside from an occasional muttered complaint about the heat. The monochrome forest gives way to an even more monotone field of wheat, and Dream decides to stop for the night, in order to collect some grain and get some rest. Wheat is one of the only food sources that didn’t rot away after the world went to shit, so Dream has become an expert in homemade bread in the past 12 months.

“I hate you so much,” Dream says to the tall, still stalks around him. He’s planted himself as close to the geographical center of the field as possible, as far away from the road as he dares. “I am SICK of bread, oh my God.”

He sighs, and pulls his mortar and pestle out of his pack. He had been crushing his wheat into flour using rocks until about a month ago, when a shop with dusty tarot cards and healing crystals in the windows yielded a mortar and pestle. Dream still has no idea what the hieroglyphs in the smooth stone mean, but it’s helped him eat, and that’s all he cares about.

He makes a small fire with flint and steel, one of the only easy things to conjure in the unrelenting heat.  
He takes off his jacket, laying it on the ground beneath him, and curls up on a crushed patch of wheat as the sun sets, the coming of night doing nothing to rid the air of its oppressive dustiness. Dream tosses and turns, his eyes staying wide and unblinking, until he realises why he’s not falling asleep.

His cracked, calloused fingers fumble with the thin string tied at the back of his head. When he finally manages to unclasp his mask, wrenching the dirty ovular shape away from his face, he takes a huge gulp of air, and squints up at the stars. He washes his face with a little purified water, and enjoys the feeling of his dark blonde hair flopping over his bare forehead, unkempt and wavy. He runs his fingers through it, wondering if it would be more comfortable to tie it back. Surely it’s long enough by now, after twelve months without a haircut.

Eventually, his hands stray to his right cheek, as they always do. His morbid curiosity, his desperation, and the usual twinge of hope that it might be gone swirl confusingly in his stomach. His fingertips ghost over his skin, and he feels the raised white scar tissue, the uneven burns, and the veiny swells of sickness creeping down towards his jaw. His eye is still untouched, thank God, but there’s no doubt that the infection-- or whatever else it is-- is spreading.

It started as a tiny dark spot, like a raised blood vessel, a bruise, maybe even a mole, on his cheekbone. Then it grew, and grew, and started to burn in the sun and send shooting pains through his skull. They would be so sudden, and so debilitating, that he had spent many a sleepless night with his head in his arms, trembling, trying to will away the pain. 

What had caused it? Dream still has no idea. He remembers a rotten black vine crushing a tree, that he had leaned in to smell before it shot putrid spores in his face, and how he retched up black bile for days afterwards. He remembers the first time he felt the acid rain sizzle on his skin, and the choked scream he let out when the heavens opened up on him. His bare wrists still bear the pale circular marks of falling poison. 

Either of those things, not to mention the hundreds of smaller incidents he’s had navigating the apocalypse alone, could have caused the terrifying sores blooming across his face. Dream’s made peace with it, he tells himself every day, the fact that he can’t hold it off forever. He never thought he would survive even this long.

The mask he found in a costume store, which was virtually untouched, sparkly princess dresses hung side-by-side with vampires’ capes on plastic hooks, collecting dust. It was an especially dark building, with mannequins casting strange shadows on the walls, and Dream hadn’t lingered. He had swiped the first mask he saw off a mannequin in the display window, an ovular white one with a silly cartoon smile drawn on it, and left. 

He hasn’t taken it off ever during the day, and his headaches have mostly subsided. It’s become routine for him to wake up at the crack of dawn, already feeling clammy and red-faced, and pull on the barrier between him and the world. Just like making bread, unpacking his bag, and telling himself he’s not, definitely not, going insane, have become parts of his life. Just like talking to his friends on Discord or petting his cat used to be.

Eventually, Dream’s exhaustion and melancholy somehow spin themselves into something resembling sleep. His dreams are violent, as usual, but when he snaps awake in the navy glow of early morning, he can’t remember exactly what he was running from in them. Still, he takes his dagger from his pack and attaches it to his belt, the weight of it tapping rhythmically against his hip as he sets back off on his never ending journey to nowhere, humming tunelessly and trying to think of reasons to keep walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya! hope you're all having a great day.  
> my love for angst, hurt/comfort and sci-fi are really gonna shine through in this piece.  
> the usual psa: i'm not a ship kind of person, so it's up to you how you interpret the relationships in this fic. if any of the ccs express discomfort with fanfiction, i'll take this whole thing down. we respect the real people above the characters in this household!  
> i'll add tags as i go along, and i'm trying my very best to put accurate content warnings above the chapters.  
> i hope you enjoy!  
> \- author (she/her)


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm breaking in, then shaping up  
> Checking out on the prison bus  
> This is it, the apocalypse
> 
> cw: swearing, light blood/gore, light depressive/suicidal thoughts

Dream’s beginning to think that the stories about central America being endless are true after all.

He’s been walking for hours, and his socks are beginning to drag painfully against the ankles of his slightly-too-small boots. He can feel the beginnings of blisters. Oh yeah, and his right eye is aching again. It’s been a swell day so far.

He’d relit his fire and made his bread, then eaten the lumpy circle of bland flour and water in two bites. His stomach still growls at him occasionally, reminding him that his supply of canned food has been gone for a week, and that if he can’t find another source of food soon, he’s going to die of hunger.

“I will NOT,” Dream tells the nagging whisper inside his head. “I am NOT losing to some stupid hunger.” I’m already losing to some fucking alien disease, he thinks bitterly. No need to add to the list.

His eyes scan the horizon for any signs of life: an abandoned gas station, a farmhouse in the dead fields, anything. I’m not picky, he tells the universe, just give me something.

His pleas go unanswered, and the broad stretch of road ahead of him stares back contemptuously. To pass the time, Dream takes a half-empty spool of string from his bag and cuts off a generous chunk with his sword, trying it into a loop that he can fasten his hair back with. He slings his green hood over his ears to avoid sunburn, and enjoys the lack of heavy hair plastered to the back of his neck. He sighs happily, twirling his most prized tool in between his fingers. 

Despite it being no longer than his forearm, Dream likes to call it his sword. It’s a sharp hunting knife he looted from a dead body a few months after the beginning of the end. Its relatively clean blade sparkles in the sunlight, and the well-worn weather on the handle is molded to his grip. Sometimes, when the silence gets oppressive, Dream pretends that he’s back in a game of Minecraft with his friends, laughing at their glitchy screams as his character chases them down with a bright blue pixelated sword. He doesn’t remember what the sword’s original owner looked like. They were already decomposing when he found them.

He doesn’t let himself think about anyone from before. He knows that they’re all dead and gone by now, or rotting away like him.

“What am I even doing?” His voice is rough and cracked, like the dirt and gravel surrounding him. “Where am I walking to?”

To survival, his head tells him. To a nice place where you can curl up and die, says his heart.

After another hour, life grants him a reprieve. Finally, peeking over the curve in the road, Dream sees the tops of what looks like buildings. His pace quickens, and he hauls himself over the shallow hill in record time. What he sees melts away all the previous tension in his face, and the shooting pains in his temple subside.

He takes his first few steps through the main street of the ghost town cautiously, sword in hand, on high alert for any living thing that might have taken refuge in the buildings lining the way. He sees a grocery store, a bookshop that looks virtually untouched by looters, and an old cinema, the neon sign hanging at an angle from the wall. Dream recognizes the names of the movies advertised on the posters outside the doors-- he had gone to see one of them with a friend a week before the apocalypse. It was the last time he ever saw the guy. Dream wonders if he might have made it-- he was quite intelligent, after all, and anyone with a nickname like Technoblade must have a good chance of survival, right?

Dream slips away down a side alley to the residential section of town. It’s almost eeries to see empty flowerpots and rotting picket fences, remnants of a quaint country town. Dream runs a hand over the fine sand and dust coating a white-painted gate. His eyes fall on a rusted school bus sitting in front of a buttercup-yellow bungalow. His heart drops into his shoes, and he feels the beginnings of a sob in the back of his throat. There were kids here once.

Dream dashes into the closest house, hands shaking as he locks the door behind him. He chokes back his tears as he runs through the cluttered living room, wrenching all the curtains closed to block out some of the blinding sunlight, and frantically searches the kitchen cupboards and bedrooms for anything of use. His breathing has slowed once he’s finished his rounds, the familiar tasks grounding him. 

Dream drags the claw-foot porcelain bathtub from the en suite into the living room, and starts a fire with the dry wood he has on hand. He allows himself to chuckle at how absurd the sight is, and heats up a can of tuna he found in the back of the pantry. 

The shadows in the room lengthens as he eats, and once he’s done, he doesn’t reach to put his mask back on. Dream shakes the cushions vigorously before stretching out on the sofa, long legs dangling over the armrest. The embers of his bathtub fire have a nice warmth to them, one that spreads through his insides rather than burning his skin like the sun. His thoughts wander as he contemplates the popcorn ceiling above him, discoloured by water damage.

“How do I always end up like this?” he mutters. “Middle of the night, can’t fall asleep.”

He rubs his chin, and feels a sore lump to the right of it. He knows what it means, but doesn’t waste time thinking about it. Instead, he drifts off, wondering if someone will remember him once they take his sword.

The next morning, Dream has more vigor than usual. Maybe it’s the presence of proper food in his belly, or the aftermath of his dejection the day before,but whatever it is, it propels him upwards and gives him a spring in his step.

Dream spends the morning exploring the town, poking his head into every house and rummaging through the debris of the stores on the main street. He finds enough food for a couple weeks, a month if he rations it properly, but nothing more. There’s a tiny police station, but the door has been kicked in, and all the weapons seem to have been looted. Even the most remote of towns can’t escape the hungry mouths of the few humans left. Dream isn’t sure whether he’d be excited or terrified to see another living person. He sure as hell wouldn’t know what to say-- it’s been months since he’s spoken to anyone but himself.

He wanders back to his base, with the intention of cleaning himself up and washing out his clothes. His forest green jacket looks more gray than anything, and his hair is a tangled mess of built-up sand and grime. Not even caring if it’s acid, Dream dips his finger into the clean-looking liquid collected in a sealed rain barrel in the backyard of the house. It’s a pleasant surprise to find that it’s very much water, and very much potable. 

Dream fills all the bottles he possibly can, then rises out the bathtub in the living room and cleans himself off. He finds a pair of sweatpants and a new t-shirt in a bedroom dresser, and throws them on as he waits for his old clothes to dry out on the sidewalk. He’s not worried about leaving them out there-- it’s not like a rat or a cockroach is going to be able to drag them away.

Bored, Dream ties his mask back on and goes into the bathroom. Sword in hand, he runs his fingers through his hair, then messily lops off a few curls that have grown almost to his shoulders. It’s not a very well-done haircut, but it keeps the brown waves from being a liability. His ends are split and faded from the heat, and their colour looks almost blond in some places. Dream wonders if he would have ever tried this haircut in his normal life. He usually kept it very, very short. I kind of like the ponytail, he admits to himself. “I look cool,” he tells his masked reflection. It makes him smile, and he doesn’t care that his cheek hurts from the movement.

He turns to leave the bathroom, but stops dead in his tracks. Dream feels every muscle in his body stiffen, and cold fear blooms in his gut. The mirror above the sink is cracked and dirty, but there’s no mistaking what he sees.

There’s a spot on his back. A dark purple one, slightly swollen, dark veins running outwards from the center and extending towards his shoulder blades. Dream tells himself to breathe, and gingerly pokes the spot. There’s a wave of pain, and Dream almost sees stars. His legs wobble, and he hurries to sit on the living room couch. He buries his head in his hands, forcing down the bile rising in his throat. Now that he knows it’s there, every tiny shift of his shoulders has him feeling the spot.

It’s the same as his face, for certain, and it definitely wasn’t there when he laid down last night, or he would have noticed it sooner. Dream jumps to his feet and spins wildly around, looking for… he’s not sure what. Black vines like on the tree from long ago, probably. He bends down and inspects the couch, adjusting his mask until he’s convinced it’s fully covering all of his orifices. He can’t shake the feeling, though, that he’s far too late.

Some cautious dismantling of the couch reveals nothing, until Dream notices a small, shriveled shape crushed in between two cushions. He pokes it with his sword, and it puffs out a cloud of rotten-smelling particles. Dream leaps back. It’s one of the weird seed pods that were on the vines in that forest. It must have traveled here on the wind.

Dream’s throat is dry. “I’m dying,” he slowly says, standing stock-still in the house that isn’t his, its inhabitants long unable to hear him. The words taste bitter on his tongue. 

“I’m gonna die.”

Dream’s previous energy dissipates as the afternoon drags on. He packs up his few possessions lethargically, and searches the house one more time just for something to do. He remembers his clothes at the last minute, and figures they should be dry by now. I’ll grab them as I leave, he thinks.

Dream slings his hood back on, and braces for the rush of hot air and sunlight as he opens the door. He plods down the pathway to the street, eyes adjusting to the brilliance of the abnormally large, orange orb in the sky. Once he reaches the sidewalk, however, he stops in his tracks.

His clothes are gone. Not blown away by the wind, or ripped apart by bugs and rats. Just gone. There’s even an imprint in the dust where they had sat.

Dream’s most basic instincts take over. He crouches in the dirt, and narrows his eyes at the ground, muttering profanities under his breath.

“What the hell… who--?”

His eyes widen behind his mask. There’s a footprint in the dirt. Long, thin, probably made by a sneaker, rather than the heavy prints his own combat boots leave. He searches, but can only find the one print. Whoever made it was standing right by his jeans, and was definitely the same person who stole them. 

“Oh, you fucker,” Dream seethes, his patience with the apocalypse and its inhabitants worn thin. “You’re gonna regret this.”

They hadn’t even had the courage to face him head-to-head. They’d just grabbed the easiest resources they could get and ran. Like a weasel. Like a coward. Dream’s heart rate speeds up, until it’s pounding. He tightens the straps of his pack of his shoulders, and clenches the handle of his dagger so hard that his knuckles turn white.

“I am NOT dying wearing sweatpants.”

As he stalks down the street towards the main street, he runs all of his observations through his head. He had checked every building in the entire town except for one: the barn that marks the end of the town and the beginnings of the farmland. Dream hates barns, and besides, who would camp there when there are real houses to sleep in?

He jogs across the town, keeping to the sides of the streets as much as possible, eyes and ears constantly checking for anything out of the ordinary. It looks just as empty as it did the day before, but that tells Dream nothing. For all he knows, this person could have been watching him for days.

Finally, he sees the rusted legs of the grain silo, the only thing in the town that could reasonably be considered a ‘landmark’. The barn sits in its shadow, the big wooden doors lying open. The inside is very dark, with only a few shafts of sunlight penetrating the wooden beams of the roof. Dream still doesn’t see any signs of habitation. 

Maybe it’s the way the wind picks up, whistling around his hood, maybe it’s the tiniest noises of cloth against concrete, maybe it’s just instinct, but all of a sudden, Dream knows there’s someone standing behind him. He slowly, ever so slowly, turns to face the street, and finds that he’s right.

“Hello.”

It’s a thin young man, a head shorter than him, standing with his chin raised about ten feet away. He’s got a gun, Dream notices instantly, and he’s wearing an all-too-familiar t-shirt.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” is the first thing he spits out, probably not the smartest introduction.

The guy just smirks. He has short brown hair and a uniquely arrogant expression. Dream hates him already.

“Yep,” he says, popping the ‘p’, “and what are you gonna do about it?”

He’s British. Even worse. Dream laughs, his signature low chuckle.

“I dunno. Kill you, probably.” 

At least the guy has the decency to look worried. Dream raises his right hand, dagger on full display, and takes a purposeful step forward. 

The guy splutters, all of his bravado melting away. He lifts his gun, finger on the trigger, but Dream sees the tremor in his grip. He clearly hasn’t had to use it yet. It might not even be loaded.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” says Dream slowly. He raises his arms in a gesture of friendliness. “Just give me my jeans and my jacket back and I’ll go, I promise. You can keep the t-shirt, I don’t really care.”

“I can’t.” The guy chews on his bottom lip. “I need that jacket, I haven’t found one yet and the sun is actually killing me.”

If only you knew, thinks Dream bitterly. He sighs. He’s going to have to fight the man, and he’s not looking forward to it.

He lunges forward, leaping at the guy with full force, a classic football tackle he learned in high school. Caught off guard, the man tries to jump out of the way, and in the process drops the gun. It skids away over the pavement, coming to a stop right by where the road transitions to dead grass. They collide, and Dream hears a huff of air escape the man as he hits the ground. He decks Dream in the left side of his face, and the blow is absorbed by his mask. They tussle for a few more moments, until Dream pins the man’s wrists to the ground with one arm, and presses his knife to his pale throat. The man struggles, but it’s of no use-- Dream is taller and heavier than he is, and he had the element of surprise. 

Slowly, they catch their breath, glaring at each other. Dream hates how exposed his arms, and especially his back, feel in the midafternoon sun. He knows he needs to finish the job quickly, and move on to a new shelter before nightfall. He considers his hostage, whose eyes are closed, as if waiting for something.

“Well?” His accent is especially thick. Dream wonders how he ended up in America just as the world went to hell in a handcart. He doubts he’ll get the chance to ask.

“Well?” The stranger repeats. He cracks one eye open. “Do it already. Don’t just leave me hanging.”

Dream swallows, and raises his knife. One quick swipe, and it’ll be over. Or maybe it won’t, whispers his mind, and you’ll have to hear it, see it, swipe again and again and again…

His fingers are numb, and the panic is back in full force. It’s all Dream can do to keep the still-straining man pinned beneath him.

When he looks away, the man’s eyes narrow. “You weren’t lying, you really don’t want to kill me.”

Dream shakes his head. What’s in it for him to lie?

There’s a moment of silence, and a hot breeze ruffles their hair. Dream’s hostage finally relaxes, and Dream releases him, pushing himself away to sit in the middle of the road. He traces the edges of his mask, and the rhythmic action helps slow his racing thoughts. He’s expecting the guy to make a break for it, grab his gun, something, but he does none of those things. Instead, he sits up as well, crossing his legs, and the two of them consider the other for a moment.

Finally, the guy speaks. “What’s with the mask?”

Dream starts. How on Earth is he supposed to answer that? ‘I’m withering away from some stupid purple alien spore’ doesn’t seem like the right thing to say to the first person he’s talked to in over twelve weeks. He opts for a shrug.

“To stop sunburn, I guess.”

“Fair.”

A centipede scuttles between them, drawing an invisible line across the road, before disappearing into the field. It’s almost ironic, or something.

“I’m George, by the way.”

Dream’s head snaps up. He barks out a laugh. “What?” he asks incredulously. “Why would you tell me that?”

“You’ve literally tried to kill me like twice in the past ten minutes, I thought it’d be polite.”

“I didn’t though. Kill you, I mean. I just… tackled you. Once.”

“Well, that’s pretty much the same thing,” muses the young man-- George, apparently. “People usually buy me dinner first, though.”

Dream splutters, and George giggles. Dream wonders if he’s fully sane.

“Oh come on, are you giving me my clothes back or not?”

George stands up. “Yeah, sure. I’m kind of scared of you now. Follow me.”

Dream knows it’s a bad idea to follow the guy, but he rises to his feet anyway. No time like the present to be shot and killed in some cowboy town in the middle of nowhere. At least he’ll have his jeans back on when it happens.

“Wait a minute,” he realizes after a couple minutes of walking behind George, “why didn’t you just shoot me first? You had a gun!”

“It wasn’t loaded or anything. Honestly,” George slows his pace until he’s walking side by side with Dream, “I don’t know how to use it. I just try and scare people off.”

Dream knows he could have put two and two together sooner. He’s not an arms expert himself, but George didn’t look anything like the guys in the action movies when he pointed his handgun at Dream. He properly looks at him, thankful his stare is hidden behind the blank smile of his mask.

George, if that’s his real name, is far shorter and skinnier than Dream. His skin is very pale, with occasional patches of angry red sunburn that haven’t healed yet, and the tips of his ears are very badly burnt. His dark eyes squint ahead of them, darting from the road to Dream, then back again, and his Cupid’s bow is red from him chewing on it. As Dream watches, he reaches up and tugs on the shaggy hair at the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable with his beginnings of a shag mullet.

Dream snickers at the thought of this skinny kid with a mullet, and George furrows his eyebrows at him. “Changed your mind about stabbing me?”

“Not yet,” responds Dream smoothly.

“Good, because we’re here.”

They’ve stopped in front of a white two-storey house at the very end of the long residential street that Dream had walked up yesterday. He can see the squat roof of his yellow hideout in the distance.

“I saw you coming yesterday, and snuck out to hide in the barn,” says George. “Took my stuff with me. I figured you’d search for food.”

At the mention of food, Dream’s stomach growls loudly. George, thankfully, doesn’t notice, and simply opens the door to let Dream in. Dream nods at him and steps into the house, but keeps his hand casually sat on his hip, where he’s put his sword in the fabric waist tie of his sweatpants.

It’s not a very remarkable base camp-- every house in this town seems to have the same layout, and the fact that George had been able to collect all his possessions and move out so quickly must mean that he isn’t much better off than Dream. Dream takes an odd comfort in knowing this.

George goes to the kitchen, takes a bundle of cloth out of a cupboard, then tosses it behind him. Dream catches it, and sees that it’s his green jacket, wrapped in his black jeans. It doesn’t look like they’ve been worn yet… maybe he hadn’t had the time?

“Thanks.” Dream isn’t sure whether or not it’s weird to thank the same guy who stole his stuff for returning it.

George echoes his thoughts. “Don’t thank me, I literally stole it.” 

Dream snickers. “It’s polite.”

“Huh,” laughs George, going to drape himself over the living room sofa. Dream hope and prays that there’s no black spores hidden in the cushions. Then he asks himself why he cares.

“I know, I’m a pretty funny guy.”

“Bet you made a lot of friends when there were still people.”

“Yeah, it’s the mask. Makes me look so friendly.”

The casual banter fades away into the stuffy air. Dream sets his pack down on the coffee table, and puts his jacket on, glad for the protection it gives him. He feels just a little bit stronger, a little bit more like himself. He puts his pack back on, and starts towards the door. George pipes up from behind him.

“Thanks for not killing me, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it.” Dream squares his shoulders, preparing for another day of walking and another night of sleeping in a field. Against his better judgement, he looks back at George one last time. The man is fiddling awkwardly with the hem of Dream’s shirt. It’s probably the strangest thing he’s ever seen, and considering that he watched the world come crashing down around his ears, that’s a high accolade.

There’s so much he wishes he could ask. Who was George, before the apocalypse? Why is he a Brit, here in Whocaresville, America? God damnit, why is he so nice? Nice people don’t live this long. Anyone who’s watched a zombie movie before knows that.

None of these questions actually leave Dream’s mouth. Instead, it’s George who speaks.

“Where are you going, anyway?” 

“Nowhere. To the next town, I guess, and then the next.”

“That sounds kind of boring, honestly.”

“Yeah, well, what else am I gonna do? Better than being dead.” Dream doesn’t quite believe the last part, but he says it anyway.

George stands up, and pulls the curtains back slightly to look out the yellowing glass panes into the street. “It’s getting late,” he remarks.

“Mmm.” Dream doesn’t know what to say. Is he stalling so he can whip out another gun from God knows where?

George just looks at him, eyebrows raised in a way that tells Dream he should be picking up something that he’s not. He just blinks, and pushes his mask back up his face, making sure all of his infection is completely covered. A stray lock of hair falls out of his ponytail, and he tucks it behind his ear.

George huffs in frustration. “Oh my God, you’re so dense. I’m asking you if you want to stay here for the night.”

Dream almost reels backwards in shock. “What?” he splutters.

George rolls his eyes, the sass he displayed by the barn coming out again. “You obviously don’t have food, and I have some. I, like… can’t really fight anyone, so I won’t kill you, and you won’t kill me, because I gave back your stupid yellow coat. So we could help each other out!”

Dream’s first thought is hell no. He’s been on his own, making his own way in the world, for a whole year, and he hates the idea of slowing himself down from his incessant walking. Still, meeting a real, living person has made him realize how much he misses conversation. Enemy or not, he hasn’t spoken to anyone for so long, and although Dream doesn’t consider himself a social butterfly, he craves connection just as much as anyone else. This George guy is awkward, annoying, and has a high-pitched laugh that set’s Dream teeth on edge, but he’s better than nothing.

His heart decides for him. “Sure.” He’s dying anyway, so what’s the harm in taking a couple days to just enjoy what’s left of life?

George looks thrilled, but tries to hide it. “Cool. Sounds good. Alright.” He scampers away to the kitchen. “I have plenty of water, if you want any now. There’s two bedrooms upstairs, but the floor up there is pretty unstable, so I usually sleep down here. You can do whatever you want.”

He reappears with two plastic kid’s cups full of water, and hands the pink one to Dream, who pulls up the bottom of his mask, exposing his chapped lips, and takes a deep gulp. The water is still cool, and tastes much better than the stuff he’s collected in his plastic bottles. They drink in silence, then Dream excuses himself to the bathroom to change. 

He relaces his boots, reties his ponytail, and forces himself to ignore the dark welts and discoloration on his face. He can barely look at himself, much less remember what he looked like a year ago. His jawline is sharper, his hair is completely different, and his eyes are tired and sunken. He hates the face staring back at him. Soon enough, he’ll have to avoid mirrors altogether.

As he reappears in the living room, much more at home now he’s in his own clothes, an odd phrase of George’s rises out of his memory. He appears to be dozing off on the sofa, so Dream takes the opportunity to ask him about it.

“What do you mean, my ‘stupid yellow coat’?”

“Mmm?” George opens his eyes, blinking at Dream.

“You said you gave me back my stupid yellow coat. First of all, it’s a jacket, so ‘coat’ sounds like some British bullshit to me, and it’s SO obviously green, are you actually blind?”

George looks like he’s trying not to laugh. “I am. Colorblind.”

Dream’s eyes widen behind his mask, and he’s grateful that George can’t see the embarrassed flush of red that appears on his freckled face. “Oh,” he chokes out.

George, thankfully, doesn’t seem bothered. “Yeah, it’s piss-yellow to me. But everything is these days, so you blend in pretty well.”

After that exchange, they lapse into a cautious silence. Dream makes a big show of burying his dagger in his pack, securely wrapped in his sweatpants, and he unpacks some canned beans and pineapples to chip in. A truce should always be marked with some kind of offering, he reasons. George has pried up a few floorboards in the center of the room, and has a firepit already lined with stones and piled high with wood. Dream sets it alight with his flint, and they sit cross-legged on the floor, George giving the flames an occasional poke, and Dream prying open their cans of food to heat up in the embers. With nothing else to do while they wait, and being too tired to start dialogue, Dream resorts to staring at George again.

He doesn’t look particularly strong, nor wiry like some unassuming people can be. His hands are strong (he might have been a piano player, Dream thinks), but he fumbles with objects like he’s unsure of how to use them. He has odd mannerisms-- pulling at the uneven ends of his hair, rubbing the heel of his hand against the five o’clock shadow on his jaw, and tapping his hand against his knee as if he were maneuvering a computer mouse. 

He’s fidgety, but not tense; his expression is thoughtful, but he seems distracted. Dream was good at reading people, a long time ago, but he can’t seem to figure George out. He doesn’t know whether that’s because he’s out of touch, or George is simply hard to read.

The crackling of the fire grows louder in Dream’s ears, until all of a sudden, he can’t stand it any longer. He clears his throat.

“I’m Dream, by the way.”

George smiles, then frowns. “You’re serious?”

A twinge of annoyance crosses Dream’s face. He pulls his mask firmly over the thin line of his mouth. “Yeah. Everybody calls… everybody calls me that.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Dream knows that George is telling the truth; he is actually sorry.

“It’s fine, I know it’s kind of stupid.”

“It makes you seem scarier, actually. You know, with the mask and the big knife and stuff. You look like you’d be the kind of person who stabs people and then steals all their… like, jewelry and stuff.”

Dream wheezes. “Jewelry?”

“I dunno,” George whines, “it was the first thing I thought of! My point is, it’s kinda funny how I was the one to steal your stuff. Even if I gave it back.”

Dream clutches at his stomach, letting out another high-pitched tea kettle tone. “Yeah, you gave it back, once you had a fuckin’ KNIFE at your throat!”

“Hey, I’m not really a PVP kind of person--” George is drowned out by Dream’s cackles. His laugh is contagious, and George can’t help but join in. They laugh themselves hoarse, and when they’ve calmed down at last, the pineapple juice inside the can is bubbling. They eat pineapple and beans, and let each other ask questions.

“Fighting’s not my style either,” shrugs Dream, “I don’t like… hurting people. Only when I have to.”

George nods along. “Only when we have to,” he echoes.

“So,” begins Dream through a mouthful of beans, “how did you end up here when… you know?”

George sighs. “I came over to visit some friends about a week earlier. I was supposed to stay for a month. I had just got back to my hotel that night when I saw all the news stories.” He gives a dry chuckle. “I was actually in my pajamas when we were all asked to evacuate. Kind of embarrassing.”

Dream’s glad that he isn’t alone in his clothing worries. He’s forgiven the guy for keeping his t-shirt; he can’t imagine wandering a dry wasteland for a year in woolen pajamas. He’d also managed to acquire trousers somewhere in there, so he doesn’t look too badly off now.

The night stretches on, and the darkness in the house deepens until Dream and George are illuminated only by the fading remains of the fire below them. George stifles a yawn across from him, and Dreams realizes that this is his last chance for questions before George potentially stabs him in his sleep.

“How old are you, George?”

“Twenty-four,” murmurs the man sleepily. Dream’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline.

“Oh come on now, I thought you were, like, nineteen or something.”

George scowls. “Everybody thinks that. Just because--”

“Just because you’re short,” finishes Dream with a snort. “I’m half a foot taller than you and you’re still older than me.”

“Stoooop,” groans George, eyelids beginning to droop. “I’m average height, at least.”

“No way are you average, my fourteen-year-old sister is taller than you.” The words, spoken in a moment of complete unawareness, send a pang shooting through Dream’s heart. He hasn’t heard from his sister since the end of everything. He doesn’t let himself think about what probably happened to her, or what she would say if she saw him now. To shake it off, he forces George upright, and they stand face-to-face in the living room, George trying to surreptitiously stand on his tiptoes. His eyes just about meet the bottom of Dream’s mask.

If he’s going to kill me, now’s his chance, thinks Dream dully. 

But George doesn’t, instead swaying where he stands. Overcome with emotions that he’s almost forgotten-- one of them recognizable as simple contentment-- Dream takes him by the shoulders and pushes him towards the sofa where he clearly sleeps.

“Get some rest, dude.”

“M’kay,” says George. Not needing to be told twice, he curls up on his side and promptly falls asleep. Dream waits a few minutes to make sure he’s truly dead to the world, then gingerly pulls his hood and mask off. He sighs, as his wounds are exposed to the lukewarm night air. He’ll have to sleep with it on tonight, in case George wakes up before him. Dream won’t take any chances.

For the third time, he lets himself take the older man in. He looks even younger with his eyes closed, but Dream can see, illuminated in the firelight, his hollow cheekbones. The apocalypse hasn’t been treating him kindly either.

“Do I trust you?” Dream murmurs at his deeply breathing form, making himself as comfortable as possible on the floor. “Do you trust me?”

You’ll have to, for now, his mind tells him. You made a promise to.

More has happened in the past twenty-four hours than in months, and Dream is feeling a new kind of fatigue. He’s already regretting his rash agreement to stick with this guy for a bit, and wonders just how long George expects this little ‘team’ to last, He wonders if he’s fallen right into a trap.

Dream wishes he could see the stars, could let the night air wipe away his sunburns and dark circles. He almost misses making disgusting bread in the wheat field, thinking about nobody but himself. But at the same time, a tiny little bell rings out from a long-empty place in his heart, reminding him: you have a purpose now. You have somewhere to come back to, if only for a little while.

“Thanks,” Dream whispers, whether to George or to the voice in his head, he can’t decide. His muscles relax, and the ghost of a smile appears on his lips.

“At least I won’t die alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am taking advantage of this burst of late-night creativity for as long as i can. here's the second chapter, that i wrote in literally one day!  
> hope you enjoy!  
> \- author (she/her)


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